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This sermon was preached on Sunday 23/09/2001 Am, by Kevin Matthews.
There is a longing in the heart of every man, woman and child who knows not the Lord Jesus Christ. It is there even in the most out and out rebel against the authority of God. There is a sense that something is missing and that there must surely be something more to life than that which they currently know. You see eternity has been placed in your heart (Ecc 3:11), and you long for the satisfaction of that deep-seated hunger for something more. It is the void of Christlessness in the heart of every unsaved and spiritually dead human being.
Many things have perhaps been tried in order to fill this void. Some have thrown themselves headlong into the pursuit of worldly pleasure, sure that the next pleasure indulged in or discovered will satisfy the longings of their hearts and drown out the aching cry of Christlessness. Others have entered into a life of religious seclusion, certain that a way of enlightenment and service to religious ideals can silence the pangs of conscience and the beckoning cries of eternity. But still the pain is there, the longing is unanswered, and only a superficial satisfaction has been realised if even that. The sense of a deep longing remains, crying out to be satisfied, and perhaps you are driven on to still further attempts to find the satisfaction for that longing.
Do you want the satisfaction that answers this longing unbeliever? Do you want the genuine answer to that deep-seated hunger that reveals the starved state of your soul? Then hear me this morning, for there is spiritual bread that comes from heaven that is God’s way to satisfy that spiritual hunger, as physical bread satisfies physical and temporal hunger. It is my job to serve this bread up to you, to present it to you, that you might take of it and eat. Here you will find the answer to your soul’s greatest need, a bread designed specifically for spiritual hunger that will answer the cry of your famished soul.
When the Jews heard that there was such a bread as this, they said ‘Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread (Jn 6:34).’ Yes, it is true that they misunderstood the nature of the bread on offer, but you who have heard concerning the spiritual nature of the bread on offer, what do you say to it? Do you recognize that this bread is specifically designed to answer that great longing of your heart and of your soul? Do you want to get hold of this bread for your own soul’s satisfaction? Do you see that this bread from heaven is what you must certainly get a hold of and eat for eternal satisfaction?
‘Give us this bread. We must have this bread. Where is this bread to be found that answers my greatest spiritual need? Help me to it that I may eat of this bread and gain life. Oh that I had this bread, for then I would be relieved of my burden and then I would live.’ Do you want this bread sinner?
‘And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst (Jn 6:35).’
‘What’s that - the bread that is the appointed means for giving spiritual life to man is Jesus Christ?’ Yes, that’s right. Jesus is the God given means for obtaining spiritual life. He is the one who brings spiritual satisfaction to the soul. He is the one that answers all the longings of the human heart. He is the spiritual bread that comes from heaven and the Father. The bread that you need is Jesus.
What physical bread is to the hungry physical body, Jesus is to the hungry soul. As physical bread brings relief and satisfaction to the sensation of hunger that wells up in a person who hasn’t eaten for a long period of time, so Jesus as the spiritual bread from heaven is He that satisfies the spiritual longing that exists within the soul, thereby filling the void that has been empty for so long and bringing relief to the desperate sinner.
Jesus is the one who is needed to satisfy that longing that you know deep down inside your innermost being. The answer is not to be found in drugs that allegedly send you to a place of nirvana, and nor is it to be found in giving yourself up to this world’s sinful pleasures. No, no my friend, the answer to that continuous nagging within you, to that longing that cannot be silenced, is the Person of Jesus Christ Himself. You must have Jesus for the satisfaction of this longing or you will never be satisfied, and that yearning pain will remain unanswered and that aching void unfilled.
Unbeliever, do not think you can be satisfied with anything else. A mere external confession of Jesus as Saviour and Lord will not be enough, for you will continue to long for that lasting satisfaction that brings joy to the soul. Attending a place of religious worship and observing the participation of God’s people in worship will not satisfy your famished soul. Attempting to join in with God’s people and even fooling God’s people into thinking that you are one of them will continue to leave you desperate for relief. No, you must come to Jesus for the relief of spiritual hunger and spiritual thirst, for nothing else will do.
You must leave off all your obsessions with sin and worldly pleasures and go to Jesus. You must leave the place of religious ritual and external observance and come to Jesus. You must leave whatever it is that you currently do in your vain attempt to satisfy that eternal longing and come to Jesus as you are, forsaking all other gimmicks and sideshows, passing by the appeals of all the cults and sects, and then stop with Jesus Himself and none other. If you entertain other things you will never know spiritual satisfaction, for it will elude you, and eventually you will perish without ever knowing the satisfaction that is found in Christ.
Jesus says ‘he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst (6:35),’ therefore it is to Him that you must go. You are to go to Jesus as an individual who knows that he has not the resources in himself to satisfy this hunger, and as one who cannot find the resources in any other except Jesus Christ for the satisfaction of that greatest need. You have nothing to answer that deep longing and that crying out of the soul, and knowing that, you flee to Jesus as the sole answer to your need.
You must have relief for your soul cries out great screams of need, of being hungry and thirsty, and no other will satisfy that need except Jesus. He is the one who has the answer to your own pressing need. Friend, sinner, you must eat of this bread for the satisfaction of that spiritual deprivation you know you have, and that your conscience testifies to you of.
‘But how do I eat of this bread? You show me where this bread is and who it is, but how do I take this bread in and digest it? How do I get it into the place where I need it most?’ Do you see the parallel thought in verses 35? Well that’s the answer my friend. You are to come to Jesus, and to do that, the parallel thought says that you must believe. By believing you come to Jesus and actually eat this spiritual bread, and its spiritual nourishment is then taken into your soul and your spiritual need is then answered. It is answered for today and it is answered for tomorrow. Never again will you hunger as you have hungered, for now with Jesus you have life and that void is full. By believing in Jesus you will have a full spiritual belly that does not need to go anywhere else, for you will have found food for your soul.
Here then is the answer to your need, even Jesus, the spiritual bread of spiritual life. When you eat of this bread there is satisfaction, and you never go hungry again. You may die of physical starvation one day, but of spiritual starvation you will never die, for your hunger has been answered with the bread of life.
Yes you will need to continually go to Christ for daily feeding, but the bread of life will satisfy for eternity, and once you have taken of this bread you never suffer the same hunger again. The initial genuine feeding on Christ by faith satisfies the soul for all eternity.
‘But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not (Jn 6:36).’
Think of the Jews in the passage before us for a moment. The Jews had the bread of life right there before them and yet did not eat of it. Yes they saw Jesus right there and they had witnessed the signs of divinity that Jesus had performed, yet they were no better off for it. Why? Because they had not come to Jesus. They had not believed. They had not eaten of the spiritual bread. There was the spiritual feast right before them, yet in their spiritual impoverishment they did not take even a mouth full. They did not taste and see that the Lord is good.
They had come to Him in a physical sense, recognizing that He was no ordinary man, and some even seemed to know that He was truly the Messiah, but they had not come to Him in order that they might have life in Him. What a tragedy! What foolishness! What soul damning stupidity! The bread of life was there, and they didn’t satisfy their spiritual hunger.
Unbeliever is this your lot? The bread of life is here presented to you ‘ye also have seen me, and believe not (Jn 6:36).’
All the physical coming to Jesus that you are continually involved in means nothing. You can walk down the aisle of crusade meetings until your legs drop off and it will do you no good. You can have Jesus clearly portrayed before you as crucified and still not have enjoyed the satisfaction that He brings to the spiritually famished. You can say that you recognize Jesus as Saviour and still not know any relief from your great spiritual need. You can keep going to church week in and week out, but unless you actually eat the bread of life that is served up to you, the life that Christ gives will never be yours. Physically coming to Jesus is not the same as spiritually coming to Jesus, and therefore you have yet to eat the bread of life for yourself.
You must believe sinner, and because you have not rested in Him, because you have not cast all your confidence in Him, and because you refuse to submit to the righteousness of faith, you remain in a state of unsatisfied spiritual need and that without spiritual life. You have no life, you have no satisfaction, and you have no salvation. All this because you will not believe in Jesus, even though He is right before you. You reject Jesus as the sole object of your trust and answer for your longing. You refuse to take Jesus as the means God has provided for your salvation, and so you have no salvation. What a tragedy it all is.
If you will not eat of the bread of life my friend, then you’re the one who is to blame for it. No one else is to blame - not God, none of these, and not I. The bread has been offered to you, you have seen it week by week, but yet you will not believe. Your blood is upon your own head this morning, for you have foolishly rejected that spiritual bread that would answer your greatest need.
Is there a sense of having failed with Jesus because a multitude has not believed? Has Jesus failed, and the church failed, because you have not believed in Him? No, of course not. Hear what our text also says in John 6:37.
‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.’
Has Jesus failed in His mission if a great multitude fail to believe? Will He have fallen short of success in His mission to save sinners if you do not believe? No. Our passage clearly tells us that despite the rejections of some, every single person given to the Son will in fact be saved. And why? Because they will each one come to Him.
If a person does not come to Christ in the time allotted for him in this life, it is because He is none of God’s elect. There is no surprise if you do not believe, for you are clearly not one that has been given to Jesus to save. Jesus is not caught off guard by you and your refusal to eat of the bread of life. If you were meant to be saved through the bread of life, you would have eaten of that bread without doubt. The fact that you don’t eat is a sign that you are not His.
Those whom the Father gives to the Son, are those He has chosen from before the foundation of the world, and these whom He has given to His Son do indeed come to Him. There is no doubt about it. The text gives no exception, for all the elect of the Father will come to Jesus. Not one will be lost, for the collective whole that make up the church of God will in fact come to Jesus by faith. Every single one given by the Father comes, and therefore the only conclusion that can be reached on the basis of Scriptural authority is that those who do not come have never been given to the Son. Those who do not come to Jesus were never part of Jesus mission statement, for of those included in His mission statement He looses none, for ‘this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day (6:39).’
Why is it that not all are saved? Is it because Jesus has failed in His mission? No, no, for all He came to save will be saved, for none will be lost. The ultimate reason for people not coming to Christ is that they have never been given to the Son. Do you see that? That is what the text says. If you come away from that text with anything else, you have twisted the plain meaning of Scripture to suit your own determined misunderstanding of Scripture.
This then is the confidence of the true church of God, who in fact believe the Scriptures and what they teach. A people will be saved without doubt, being a people given to Christ by the Father, and it is these that will come to the Jesus throughout the ages as the gospel goes forth. There is a people given to Jesus and these will come, and so we have great reason for confidence as we take the gospel to this world evil and wickedness, for it is a confidence based not on our persuasive abilities, or on the good sense of the lost, but on the electing and predestinating purpose of God. That people will be saved is dependent on God, and therefore we can be sure that people will indeed be saved. He has a people whom He has given to the Son, and these will come to Him.
Of these people given to the Son, not one will perish, for He will not cast any of them out. Will you miss bringing in one of the elect because you have suddenly taken sick and been unable to take the gospel to such and such a place because of that sickness? Don’t despair dear Christian, for none of God’s elect will be cast out, they will all come to Jesus in His time. That is one of the implications of what this passage says. If the Father gives a sinner to the Son, he will indeed come to Jesus that He might have life. It is as certain as that!
No world crisis, no dwindling numbers in the church, and no slackness on your behalf will prevent a single elect sinner from coming to Jesus. Yes God uses means, but He has also said that ‘All that the Father giveth me shall come to me.’ You see nothing will prevent the elect from coming to Jesus, for there is no exception given in the passage. There are no obstacles, there are no difficulties, there is no force of evil, and there is no opposition that can prevent these ones given by the Father from coming to Jesus. They will come, and none will be lost.
‘But can I come, for I do not know if I am one of the elect?’ Why do you ask this question? God has not required you to find out whether you are one of His elect. Has He not bidden you to come to Jesus that you might have eternal life? Then come to Jesus sinner. Go to Him now, for His command is warrant enough for you to go to Him with the full confidence and expectation of gaining eternal life. God has commanded you to come, so come you must. Is God a liar? Will He not do what He has said?
But let me encourage you none-the-less on this issue, for the passage says that ‘him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (6:37).’ Do you feel your sense of sin and need of this bread of life, then come to Jesus. Do you wish to come to Him - then come to Him and don’t hold back. The passage says that if you go to Him, then He will not cast you out. Is this a contradiction? Not at all, for only those who are given to the Son will come to Him by faith. Not one person who has not been chosen by the Father will come to Jesus, only those who have been given to Him.
Sinner, if you come to Jesus for the satisfaction of your greatest longing and need, it is proof enough that you have been chosen by the Father and given to the Son. If you go to Jesus, exercising faith in Him for your salvation, then rest assured that you will have it, for He will not cast out the one who comes to Him. It is you who wish to be delivered from the great aching pain of Christlessness, who come to Christ by faith, that are the very elect of God. You don’t know that He has chosen you in eternity, but coming to Christ proves that He has.
Yes you can confidently cast aside your former way of life, you can abandon the old attempts and methods of gaining this eternal satisfaction and cast yourself upon Jesus, for He says that ‘him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (6:37).’ Is this not a wonderful encouragement to cast of all for Jesus? There is no need for doubts about this, for the God of heaven has declared it so.
It matters not whether you have been the greatest sinner or a sinner that has sinned little, you can come to Jesus and He will not cast you off. It matters not whether you are a Jew, an Australian citizen, a Muslim, or an American, for if you come to Jesus He will receive you. ‘him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out (6:37).’
Oh doubting Christian, why do you doubt? Have you come to Jesus? Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation? Then know this, the Bible says He will not cast you out. Not by any means will He do so. Why are you cast down thou chosen of the Lord, your salvation is sure. Nothing will snatch you away from Him now.
Do you for some reason feel confused about this doctrine of election and as to whether you are one of God’s elect unto salvation? Let me ask you, are you trusting and resting in Jesus? Then you are one of His elect, and you will never be cast out of His presence. There’s no need for confusion, for Scripture knows of no confusion regarding this foundational teaching.
Will you make it to the end? Will you continue to believe? This friends is a doctrine of confidence. The Bible shows us that the elect are predestined for glory, and that everything else necessary for going to glory is included in the decree of election. The faith, the repentance, the perseverance, the sanctification and so on, is all included in God’s purpose of election. Having been chosen, you have the Kingdom. Having exercised faith in Christ, you can be sure of your election and of your glorification. What a gospel! What a salvation!
But you see the implication of not coming to Him don’t you? If you continue to reject the free offer of soul satisfying bread, then you will be rejected in the last day. If you do not come to Jesus then you will be cast out to a place where there will be sorrow and gnashing of teeth, a place that is reserved for the Devil and His angels, and a place of eternal torment. This is the place that awaits all that will not come to Jesus.
Oh sinner, oh unbeliever, will you not come and eat of this bread of life and find rest for your weary souls? Here is life eternal, even Jesus the bread of life. Amen.
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